02.09.2014 Columns Column: They can have their cake and eat it, too You can learn a lot from observing a group of kids singing around a birthday cake. Most are licking their chops, thinking about nothing more than shoving cake in...
12.22.2013 Columns Column: Specials are about more than Christmas Ever notice how nasty the adults are in Christmas specials? Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve curled up with a cup of hot chocolate and a stop-motion animated...
12.12.2013 Columns Column: Long Island radio the way it oughta sound Personality. There used to be a lot of it in local radio. It wasn’t just about the music, but the jocks, the people between the tracks. They shopped at the...
12.05.2013 Columns Column: It’s the parents who need to fight Common Core Our local teachers and administrators are sounding an alarm. They’re the “canaries in the coal mine,” says Terry Kalb, a recently retired Eastern Suffolk BOCES special education teacher. And...
10.05.2013 Columns Column: A mad dash before life-altering deadline My wife and I entertain a lot. We have a good house for visitors. It’s got an open floor plan, unfinished basement replete with table games and, during the...
08.16.2013 Columns Column: Numbers-driven Common Core initiative ignores life’s realities Here’s a not-so-bold prediction on an uncertain future. State officials are going to have to backtrack mightily on the Common Core State Standards now being used in public schools...
07.21.2013 Columns Column: Attention shoppers, get it together Of all the topics I’ve covered in this space, some serious, others not so much, I think I received the most reader responses from a 2011 column about bad...
04.14.2013 Columns Column: ‘Kramering’ your way into newspapers I wasn’t sure if the young people in the classroom were going to get the “Seinfeld” reference. I figured the St. John’s University journalism students I was invited to...